Opinion

Column as I see ’em …
Judge-Executive John Wayne Conway made a good decision and a questionable one during last Tuesday night’s meeting of the Anderson County Fiscal Court.
Lest I be perceived as always focusing on the bad, let’s start with the good.
Conway informed magistrates that he had recently rejected the Shelby County Detention Center’s offer of work release inmates, a wise choice once you think it all the way through.

With three fingers clenched into a curved claw, I tried to pluck heaven out of Jane Bennett’s harp.
No rich, strong and angelic voices sang from the chord’s strings as I had imagined. Moments earlier, I had glided my pointer finger up the strings in a glissando like a child clumsily drags a stick across the bars of a fence.
My first harp lesson had lasted a total of five minutes, and I was already frustrated.
And strangely, kind of relaxed at the same time.

Column as I see ’em …
The holy war that has been waged first on the sidelines of local football games and subsequently in the editorial section of this newspaper apparently has plenty of company.
Just in the past month, high school football players were told their coach couldn’t lead them in prayer (although in actuality he really wasn’t), followed by the school board’s decision to pray, but only before it actually opens its meetings.

By Rob Hawksworth
The Bluegrass Pipeline team has begun negotiating easements with landowners. This is a critical step in finalizing the route for this important piece of American energy infrastructure. Prior to commencing these negotiations, Bluegrass Pipeline sent a letter to the affected landowners that addressed a number of issues including the important landowner question “how does this benefit me?”

By Terry Geoghegan
and Tom FitzGerald
Landowners contacted by the Bluegrass Pipeline Partners LLC, the Williams Company or one of their representatives about selling an easement for the construction of a 24-inch pressurized natural gas liquids pipeline across their property rightfully have questions about whether granting such an easement is in their interest.

You sign your name in blood on the Internet.
Not literally, because that’d be gross and virtually impossible.
But no other metaphor, in my opinion, gives the right weight of gravitas when it comes to discussing the permanent nature of representing yourself on the Internet.
It’s an unconscious blood oath that you sign with the entire online world, that everyone you write and post will exist for infinity.

Column as I see ’em …
The chart attached to this column is both interesting and sad.
Interesting in that it shows just how much Wild Turkey currently pays in property taxes after investing over $100 million in our fair county during the past four years.
What’s sad is the bottom half of the list because it points out just how poorly Anderson County has done in attracting more taxpaying behemoths like Wild Turkey.

The metal crane, with one video camera attached to its arm, slowly panned over the field to capture the sound of cannons, the snicker-snack of cavalry sword against sword and yells from Confederate soldiers as they died.
The battles of Dogwalk and Lawrenceburg caught on film to be used as the backdrop of a larger love story.
I’ve attended the Civil War re-enactment in Lawrenceburg for the last three years, listened to Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis trade speeches and steeled myself not to jump when cannons bellowed their first boom.

There’s an old adage that says it’s a bad idea to argue with someone who buys ink by the gallon (that would be me).
It’s also a bad idea to get into a prank war with someone like me, particularly when the prank involves purchasing an ad in The Anderson News Extra that pokes fun at me for turning 50 this week.
Cheri Johnson, a health department nurse who fancies herself Lawrenceburg’s Queen of Pranks, did just that, placing an ad in Monday’s Extra in a somewhat lame attempt to exact a measure of revenge for a crime I did not commit.

Because I work for an Anderson County institution that has been in operation since the late 1800s, I feel it’s my duty to appreciate the reporters, designers and proofreaders who came before me by taking a trip into The Anderson News archives.
I recently got my hands on a bound archive of the paper from 1973, and I realized something.
Well, two things.

Good people die nearly every day in Anderson County.
From age to disease to accidents, people beloved by their friends and families are taken too soon no matter their age, leaving mourners in their wake and questions about why God takes them from our lives.
Most, through no fault of their own, go largely unnoticed outside of their immediate circle of loved ones. Others, for whatever reason, leave a deeper impression on those around them — not for any tangible reason, just because they do.

She’s found strange things on the school bus.
Usually it’s costume jewelry, band instruments and orphaned cleats forgotten under seats until Rita Edington walks down to clean the aisles.
Bus 27 is her bus, the only bus she ever drove for 25 1/2 years.
But once, she found a ring.
A mother’s ring.
And Rita has wondered about this mother for more than a decade.
Rita never removes the gold band on her pinkie finger.

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Since giving my youngest daughter’s hand in marriage last Friday afternoon, I’ve thought a lot about the idea of being lucky.
I’ve never been one to believe in luck, and often bristle when I hear that so and so is “lucky” because he has a good job or a nice home or whatever.

Patriot Day is observed Sept. 11 in memory of the 2,993 people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
Anyone who was alive at the time remembers what they were doing when four United States airliners were hijacked by terrorists intent on harming innocent American civilians.

You thought you could see the deer breathe.
The relaxed buck sat resting among moss and grasses near a fence post, just in front of a rusted sign that once read “Posted: no hunting.”
Opposite where his competition full-body buck sat in repose, Justin Tinsley smeared glue onto a plastic form of his deer mount before pulling the damp fur of a tanned deer hide or “cape” over the form.
The cape is important, I learned.

To the editor:
In last week’s letters to the editor, Jerry Salyer claims the ACLU’s “ultimate goal is to purge Kentucky life of the very faith upon which it was built.”
This quote may be found on the ACLU-Kentucky website at https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief.

Stephanie Blackwell’s vision of California is desert and Hollywood.
She sees flat, open spaces.
Of course, Blackwell’s never seen California, only heard about Great Aunt Bertie’s orange grove and almond trees, the garden and maybe geese at Bertie’s home in Selma, Calif.
But after a late summer road trip spanning more than 2,000 miles, an estimated $1,000 budget for gas and about 10 states, California will be her new home for Blackwell and her son, William Smith, age 9 almost 10.

I look pretty good in hats.
And I wear a few of them: features writer, page designer, city government beat reporter and amateur expert in how to cover the Fair and Horse Show pageants.
In this week’s column, I’ll put on the hat I reserve for education news (not sure what kind of literal hat that would be, but you can use your imagination) in a quick round-up of some interesting education news from the last few weeks.

God isn’t dead even if we may not be able to pass out Bibles in school

I became enraged as I read [sports editor] John Herndon’s column entitled “What happened to decency?” concerning the recent bill passed in California that protects transgender students’ right to choose the gendered sport and locker room that matches their gender identity.

Column as I see ’em …
It’s a shame that after years of effort and no small amount of compromise the new sign ordinance being proposed by the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce does absolutely nothing to fix the current ordinance’s fatal flaw.
Not that the chamber could do a thing about that flaw, which is simply that two zoning boards of adjustments — one city, one county — can override the ordinance at will by granting waivers.